833Meanwhile the father, by the water of the river Tiber, was staunching his wounds with water and resting his body, leaning against a tree trunk. 835Some way off his bronze helmet hangs from the branches, and his heavy arms rest on the meadow. 837Chosen young men stand round: he himself, sick and panting, eases his neck, his combed-out beard spread over his chest; 839many times he asks about Lausus, and sends many to call him back and bring him the commands of his sorrowing father. 841But his comrades were carrying Lausus lifeless upon his arms, weeping, a mighty man, overcome by a mighty wound. 843From afar his mind, foreboding evil, recognised the lamentation: he defiles his grey hair with much dust, stretches both hands to the sky, and clings to the body.
846'Did such a desire for living hold me, my son, that I allowed you, whom I fathered, to go under the enemy's hand in my place? 848Am I, your father, saved by these wounds of yours, living by your death? 849Alas, now at last ruin is bitter to me in my misery, now the wound is driven deep! 851I also, my son, stained your name with my crime, driven out through hatred from the throne and sceptre of my fathers. 853I owed punishment to my country and the hatred of my people: would that I had given up my guilty life myself, by every kind of death! 855Now I live and do not yet leave men and the light.
856But I will leave them.' 856As he says this he raises himself on his injured thigh, and although the pain slows him because of the deep wound, undaunted he orders his horse to be brought. 858This was his pride, this his comfort; 859on this he had come back victorious from all his wars. 860He addresses the grieving animal and begins thus: 'Rhaebus, we have lived long, if anything is long for mortals. 862Today either you will carry back victorious those bloody spoils and the head of Aeneas, and with me be the avenger of Lausus' sufferings, or, if no force opens the way, you will fall with me; 865for I do not believe, bravest one, that you will deign to bear another's orders and Teucrian masters.' 867He spoke, and received on its back he settled his accustomed limbs, and loaded both hands with sharp javelins, his head gleaming with bronze and bristling with a horsehair crest.
870So he galloped swiftly into the midst: in one heart surge huge shame and madness mingled with grief,